La Modestine - April 20 - Seymour Art Gallery

It is impossible for me to ever go up to Deep Cove via the much newer Mt. Seymour Parkway. I prefer to go the longer and more winding root of Dollarton Highway. It passes by Cates Park. When I do I remember my friend John Lekich’s words:

Vancouver- Malcolm Lowry lived here – Errol Flynn died here.

Yesterday Thursday, April 20 I was on my way to meet up with my friend Ian Bateson for a concert of La Modestine at the Seymour Art Gallery in Deep Cove.

The concert called "German Spring" was held in an intimately small gallery that had a startlingly crisp almost loud sound.

We sat in the front row as we always do so that I could listen to violinist Marc Destrubé breathe. I sit in the front row of dance  performaces for the same reason.

Going to small concerts of Early Music Vancouver or of  La Modestine puts me in situations where I feel I am royalty. The four members of La Modestine are violinists Marc Destrubé and Seattle luminary Linda Melsted, viola da gamba player Natalie Mackie and harpsichordist Michael Jarvis (who also might be heard playing the organ).

Those four members, in a small room, make me feel like I may be Alexandre Von Humboldtberger of renowned blue German blood and they are there to play just for me.

There are no announcements (or the very least, least) and the atmosphere is informal. You know these renowned musicians (they are as they are not only famous at home but abroad) put on their pants one foot at a time.

But there is one factor that puts you at odds with them. They can read music like President John Kennedy speed read and they are virtuosi of their instruments.

You need to know that the two violinists have two playing positions. They sit or they stand. When they stand, they play seriously difficult music by the likes (not your household known composer) of Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber. When they sit they play evocatively melodious music by that other un-household known name Johann Heinrich Schmelzer.

This particular concert had besides those two composers, a solo performance on the harpsichord (Michael Jarvis) playing Johann Rosenmüller’s Sonata Sonata Sesta a 3 (no siesta it was, we were on our toes) and a most unique duo by gambist Mackie and harpsichordist Jarvis playing a composer discovered by Mackie a mere few weeks before called Jacob Reihmann.

Michael Jarvis

But the best was at the very end. Standing up the violinists and company played a von Biber Partita that included a final passacaglia (I love chaconnes and passacaglias are almost that).

Graham Walker

The evening was brilliantly fun but there was one sad moment for me. My friend, designer Graham Walker and my granddaughter Lauren, 14 could not make it. These two collaborate in sketching their impressions of La Modestine and other concerts. They work on the same pages and you can scarcely figure out who did what. I am placing here the sketches they did from the last La Modestine concert, held at Hodson Manor on February 25. I was soon to go to Austin for a school reunion and to Buenos Aires for spring break so I never did get to write my impression of that French and Italian music concert.

Linda Melsted and Lauren  Stewart

In all cases La Modestine specializes in the lesser known baroque composers of the 17^th century. Since you are not inclined to hear this stuff anywhere else you could say that this is 17 century avant-garde new music. In the case of von Biber this is a precise description of music that in that century was called fantastic. Composers took chances and pushed boundaries. Von Biber tinkered (most successfully) with variant tunings of the violin. The most famous of his compositions are his 16 Rosary Sonatas. This alternate tuning is called scordatura. By my reckoning if some violinist (accompanied by a continuo player, a continuo can be a harpsichord or a string instrument like a viola da gamba) were to attempt to play all 16 in one sitting and since the process of re-tuning that violin can take time, it would be necessary to have at least 14 violins handy!

You might spot a couple of donkeys in the sketches. The reason is that La Modestine was Robert Louis Stevenson’s donkey when the writer traveled in Europe.

For anybody who might be curious about other famous donkeys, there is Rucio (the dappled one) which was Sancho Panza’s steed of choice.